The “Take Newspapers Offline!” debate continues, but first, some thoughts on what the feds can provide to save journalism. (N.b.: “Save Journalism”, not “Save Newspapers.” Once again, there’s a difference.)

But putting my interests aside, this gets to one of the odder conflicts in journalism: Farhi is saying that the media should make a decision to inform fewer people. To do its job — if you understand its job as providing news rather making profits — worse.

“Audiences are more stratified by media habits than they are united by common interests.”[From Peter Feld’s Tumblr response to some of the conversations around Farhi’s feature]

Unless the newspaper industry can persuade the rest of the digital world to stop creating new Web sites, or can persuade many more millions of people to start visiting their own sites, everyone in the online news business will be on the wrong side of the supply and demand problem. Forever.